Strike Anywhere
by Threepwillow
Summary: After Pangaea, you could be worlds apart, standing on the same soil, sharing the same problems. [FLCL, FMA, Howl's Moving Castle, Sailor Moon. Kinda artsyintrospective.]


Pangaea.

Long ago, the continents were one huge mass of land. Since then, everything has been so stretched out by rain and rotation that someone else could be standing on the other side of the planet and still be on soil identical to yours. Something connecting South America and Africa, nothing separating Asia and Australia.

A tallish girl stood and looked up at a fading, orange-gray sunset. Her fingers with bitten nails brushed her terra-cotta hair from her blank brown eyes as it blew in the wind. She adjusted the blue and white bag on her shoulder, careful not to damage the camera inside. The bag hit her opposite hip awkwardly, but the girl did not wince. At this point, she seemed almost immune to any kind of sensation, be it pain or otherwise.

No one else was around, but she kept walking nervously, kept looking over her shoulder when she knew the only thing following her was a wide-eyed black kitten. It leapt after her with an eager cautiousness that seemed to result from everything and nothing at once. The deserted ground, stained rust-brown by the setting sun, was strewn with broken wood, shattered glass, crumbled bricks, and the occasional jutting iron pylon. An I-beam stuck out of a ditch at an angle and the cat perched on top of it. The girl came to a stop beside it and surveyed the area, satisfied.

She popped the tab on a can that wasn't full of soda.

On the same soil, hundreds of miles away, a girl of similar age sat on the floor of a deserted shrine. She whisked her hands through her long, dark hair and swept it deftly into a ponytail. She looked about with mild urgency; something was off. Annoyed, she realized what it was, and she stood to grab the broom and sweep the temple floor almost compulsively. The setting sun glared into her dark, deep eyes and she covered her face with a giant sleeve, struggling to keep up her cleaning.

Nearly dead cherry blossoms hung desperately to a tree outside the small room, but when a gust of wind swept through they fell and danced past the tinkling wind chime in the window. The girl got them with the broom as well and swept the whole pile of dust and soot out the door.

She sat back down on her mat and clapped her hands together in wordless prayer.

On the same soil, thousands of miles away, a young man and his house came to a screeching halt because they were just about out of breath. He peered out the window, the jewel hanging from his ear clacking against the glass, and decided that his current location was as good as any. The silk curtains rustled as he shut them hastily. There wasn't, after all, much time to waste.

His fireplace made a face at him and he made one back. They hadn't really made a plan; they hadn't had a chance to. Whatever he did now was going to have to work. The skies above the house were screaming red with shooting stars and false accusations, and he was doing what he did best by running away. Nervously, he raked a hand through his yellow hair and let out a long-suffering sigh. He had to remind himself not to get distracted, as _she _tended to yell at him when things were going wrong. And things were most definitely going wrong, even as he scratched half-baked sketches into the floor with the barest nub of a piece of chalk, and told them everything would be okay.

He tied his draping sleeves behind his neck for concentration and found the shovel for his fireplace.

On the same soil, millions of miles away, a man in military garb stared at the ceiling of his room. It wasn't giving him the answers he wanted, so he grew agitated and rolled over on the bed to blind himself in the sheets. They smell like flint and blood and war; they smell like he does. He got off the bed in frustration and paced the windowless room. The light, hanging from the ceiling by its cord, wobbled a little with each heavy-booted step. His short-cropped black hair was glued to his forehead with sweat.

Something ground against his soul in a very wrong way. Try as he might, no seated, standing, or moving position could calm him down. He threw his hands up in desperation and accidentally swatted the light bulb. White gloves were unmarked by its heat, but the bulb swung violently and he ducked out of its way. He contented himself with kicking the wall violently.

He didn't know what to think when the impact knocked the bulb to the floor and he was plunged into darkness.

The young girl and her cat finished pouring the can's contents onto the ground outside the desolate library shack. The cat shied away from the foul-smelling liquid, and even the girl wrinkled her nose a bit in disgust. She tossed the can to the ground and kicked it back at the structure for good measure. She dug through her bag, past the camera and her schoolbooks, for a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches.

The girl in the shrine hummed in chant and flicked her fingers together in ceremonial seals. The setting sunlight cascaded into the shrine from the windows on either side of her, but she was left in a column of shadow. The hearth in front of her was clean, so she opened her eyes and pulled a starter and some powder from a pocket deep in her robes.

The young man and his house and his fireplace were all equally frustrated. He decided to rip the bandage off fast – he scooped up the heart of the fire and slowly, carefully maneuvered his way to where he needed to be. He had, of course, no warning as to the flaming hunk of rock that came hurtling through his stone ceiling as if it were nothing more than a barrier of flower petals, rattling what was already unstable and causing him to lose his footing. Elsewhere in the house, _she _screamed.

The officer crossed the room blindly, broken glass crunching under his feet as he fumbled for the door handle. Somehow he felt that the effort was wasted, that he almost didn't want to leave the darkness. He slumped back onto his bed and tried not to inhale so deeply. He waved his hand in front of his face and saw nothing. The bed shook as he kicked the wall again, though nowhere near as hard and nothing was left to break. He tugged nervously on his glove and then reached a realization.

She yanked out a match and looked at the matchbook. "Strike anywhere," she read aloud. The match snagged across the steel I-beam, to which the cat had returned; she lit her cigarette, took a long drag between her teeth, and tossed the burning butt back toward the building and the liquid.

And the shrine girl cast her spell.

And the young man dropped his shovel.

And the officer snapped his fingers.

And the whole world went up in flames.


End file.
